


Pillow Talk

by latin_cat



Category: Sharpe - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-20
Updated: 2012-04-20
Packaged: 2017-11-04 00:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/latin_cat/pseuds/latin_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Men like to gossip just as much as anyone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pillow Talk

“I am glad this whole business is finally settled, Pumps.”  
  
“So am I, dear Henry. I cannot tell you what a relief it is to me!”  
  
“What nonsense!” Henry Wellesley exclaimed, exhaling a plume of smoke disdainfully. “Everyone knows you revel in scandal – it is your daily bread, and only entertainment.”  
  
“You think too little of me, Henry!” Pumphrey said reprovingly. “You know well that this incident could have jeopardised our vital alliance with Spain – something I was unwilling to allow, no matter how amusing the scandal might have proven in society. I would hate for any inconvenience to be caused to your dashing brother and his little soldiers. You seem to mistake me for some callous monster!”  
  
Henry declined to comment and merely grunted, taking another drag from his cheroot.  
  
“And besides,” Pumphrey continued, shifting closer to Henry on the mattress. “It would have caused you considerable personal difficulties, not to mention have ruined you so thoroughly that not even all your dear brothers could have salvaged your career. And I would hate that to happen to you,” Pumphrey said, smiling serenely whilst doodling patterns on the ambassador’s bare chest. “I care about you too deeply.”  
  
Henry laughed, smoke spilling from his nostrils.  
  
“Oh come now, that’s rich! Next you’ll be saying you love me.”  
  
“Well, don’t I?”  
  
“No, you don’t.” Henry propped himself up on one elbow and twisted round to look at Pumphrey lying next to him. “This is, if anything, a mutual bedding – a ‘shag of convenience’, to use a cruder phrase. I do not imagine for a moment that I hold any special position of affection in your heart, as I know for certain that you have tried it on with each of the others, Gerald included.”  
  
Henry paused to flick the ash from the end of his cigar over the side of the bed.  
  
“Admit it; you just wanted to bed a Wellesley – it didn’t matter to you one jot which one of us.”  
  
Pumphrey’s thin mouth twisted into a wicked smile.  
  
“Oh, tragedy!” he said, a mocking tone to his voice. “You have uncovered my secret!”  
  
Henry gave an amused snort.  
  
“I did not flatter myself into believing it was merely for my irresistible charm and good looks.”  
  
“Well, not entirely. I admit that I have rarely come across a family with such consistently handsome menfolk.”  
  
The ambassador gave a very good imitation of a pout.  
  
“And you do not have a preference for any one of us in particular?” he asked, feigning hurt.  
  
“Oh, _you_ are the most handsome by far, Henry; never fear!" Pumphrey said cheerfully, idly walking his fingers up Henry's breastbone. "But I must admit that your warrior brother does have a certain charm, an allure all of is own…”  
  
“You mean Arthur?” Henry laughed, brushing a few strands of Pumphrey’s light blond hair back behind his ear. “I fear you may be wishing for the impossible there, Pumps!”  
  
“True.” Pumphrey sighed melodramatically. “He did not show the least interest in developing a more intimate acquaintance during my short visit to Oporto in ‘09; and it seems that he is perfectly capable of arranging his own quite delectable entertainment in the bed department.”  
  
Henry studied the expression on Pumphrey’s face carefully before a smile spread slowly across his handsome features.  
  
“You have some gossip for me, haven’t you, Pumps?”  
  
“I might have.”  
  
“Excellent – do tell! I always like to have the dirt on Arthur, pompous ass that he is.”  
  
Pumphrey tutted primly. “Whatever happened to familial solidarity?”  
  
“I’ll make it up to you.”  
  
“How?”  
  
By way of a response Henry made a somewhat obscene gesture with his tongue, which made Pumphrey’s eyes shine with glee.  
  
“Oh very well, since you offer me so tempting a bribe, my dear…” Pumphrey shifted to a more upright position where he could clearly see the ambassador’s face. “I have it on every good authority that your brother, the General, is never more content than when he is in the arms of Richard Sharpe.”  
  
Henry, having inhaled of his cigar again whilst Pumphrey was fidgeting, very nearly choked on the smoke.  
  
“With _Sharpe?_ ”  
  
“With Sharpe.”  
  
“On whose authority?”  
  
“Why, my own of course.” Pumphrey casually examined his nails, smiling in satisfaction at the reaction his news had produced. “I became suspicious whilst he was at Oporto, and wished to satisfy my curiosity. Fortunately the lock on the door to his bedchamber possessed a much larger keyhole than usual.”  
  
“But Arthur is not a molly!” Henry protested.  
  
“Neither are you, Henry.”  
  
“Yes, but this is preposterous! Arthur’s never been interested in anything but the ladies. I was with him in India, and believe me I would have known if he’d ever indulged in unorthodox pleasures.”  
  
Pumphrey sighed with irritation, very tempted to point out that being in the same country as the General did not automatically make Henry omniscient in all his affairs.  
  
“I can assure you that he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely when I saw him.”  
  
Henry fell silent, continuing to stare at Pumphrey with wide, astonished eyes. Then, very slowly, he shook his head.  
  
“Well, well,” he murmured to the room in general. “You dark horse, Arthur!” He shook his head again, and laughed. “No wonder Sharpe blushed!”  
  
“Blushed?” Pumphrey sat up, attentive. “This would be Richard Sharpe, captain in the South Essex?”  
  
“The same. I told him when we first met that Arthur often had difficulty expressing his true sentiments, and if my brother spoke gruffly to him or seemed cold and distant, or at all ungrateful then it was not his true feelings towards him at all.” He shrugged. “I thought only to reassure him, make him feel more comfortable with me – I imagined that he might be daunted by the fact I was his Commander-in-chief’s brother; Arthur often told me that Sharpe gets nervous around authority, especially within the political sphere. I told him that Arthur thought very highly of him, had no end expounded his virtues and sung his praises in his letters to me. He turned red as a beet.”  
  
“How intriguing!” Pumphrey’s eyes shone with glee. “I had no idea that Sharpe bore such an attachment to your brother, nor Sir Arthur to Sharpe.”  
  
“That scruffy Tom-cat?”  
  
“I have seen many stranger things in my time…”  
  
“Arthur’s whores are usually of the expensive kind.”  
  
“As I understand it,” Pumphrey quipped acerbically. “So are Sharpe’s.”  
  
“I do not doubt it in the least,” Henry muttered. He snorted in amusement, raising his eyes to the canopy above them. “But still, who would have thought it…?”  
  
Pumphrey, bored now he had delivered his bombshell, shifted impatiently and slid himself on top of the ambassador.  
  
“Enough of this now; I’m tired of talking of your brother, and there are much more important issues to attend to.” He snatched the cigar from his startled bedfellow, stubbed it out on the nearby cabinet and dropped it onto the floor. “You know I hate it when you smoke in bed.”  
  
Henry schooled his features into a carefully blank expression.  
  
“I take it that it is not your aversion to my smoking that you refer to?”  
  
“No, it is not.”  
  
“So what issue do you wish to discuss now?”  
  
“That of my bribe.” Pumphrey’s eyes travelled hungrily over the quarters of Henry’s body left exposed by the bedclothes, and he shifted further on top of him. “You promised me a very nice payment for my information just a moment ago, and now I have given you my gossip I demand that you settle your account… immediately.”


End file.
